“Gate door is sealed,” Waylan called out from the front of the pack. He blurred, sprinting to the sealed gate in a flash, inspecting it. “We might have capped the dungeon out early. It’s not impossible when it comes to a Gate this weak.”

Voices overlapped each other as all twenty-odd people who’d made it in . The second-years were the most panicked, surprisingly. Neither Lyon nor Lia, the other two first-years who’d made it through, seemed to be particularly worried about their situation. Syl couldn’t tell if that was because they didn’t know what being trapped in a Gate would entail or if they were just that fearless.

Syl was eighty percent sure that this was enemy action. It would have been lower under normal cirumstances. After all, Gates played with magic in strange ways, one of the most common of which was locking magicians inside until they completed it.

The fact that the seal had triggered the moment Bianca had entered, however, was too significant to be coincidence.

It also meant that their enemies were sloppy. If it had been Syl, he would have waited until someone insignificant had come in before springing it. Doing it like this just raised suspicion for people in the know.

The nine Reserve members present didn’t have the same information that Syl was, so they saw little to no significance in Bianca being the last in beyond her being the class representative of year 1, but they had also been warned about potential enemy action. Syl could already see them organizing, Uriel whispering quickly to the others around her. Jennifer was setting up a defensive formation already, using overlapped B-class spells to prevent physical objects above a certain speed from passing through a designated barrier and diffusing any flux sent that way as well.

“Doesn’t one of the Sinners do this?” one of the second-years ahead of Syl was saying, her voice quaking with fear. “Gluttony? I heard she locks her targets in Gates and devours the entire place. She’s Cascadian, isn’t she? It could be them.”

The Reserve isn’t looking at how the team’s functioning at all, Syl thought. There were too many unblooded people in here, and some of them were starting to panic. If they started jumping to conclusions as absurd as a paragon-class mage choosing to seal a Gate, people were going to start acting out. The only thing worse than a strong enemy was a panicking ally.

“Everyone!” Bianca called out, recognizing the same thing Syl had. She casually enhanced her voice with a D-class conjuration-type spell, projecting it loudly enough to overpower the panicked back-and-forths. “Calm down. You were all accepted to this team—and indeed, to this academy—for a reason. You are the prodigies amongst the best. Think logically. Nothing is gained by venturing baseless speculation. There are twenty-seven of us, including nine members of the Graduate Reserve. This is a C-class Gate.”

The last two sentences seemed to bring the people panicking the worst back to their senses. Syl appreciated how deftly she had just stepped around the fact that the spell sealing them in was master-class and poked at the egos of the students, most of whom were class 1. No real magician would feel this threatened by C-class threats, she was implying.

It was a good way to take control of the narrative. Though the panicked girl had calmed down, she wasn’t entirely wrong. The paragon-class magician referred to by the designation Gluttony was Cascadian, though not affiliated with the country in any official capacity, and she had been known to simply cause entire Gates to disappear.

Not that he would be here. The last Syl had heard of him, Gluttony had been in Manchuria for reasons unknown. He highly doubted she had a reason to go after Bianca.

“Thank you, Miss Ashwood,” Uriel said, inclining her head towards Bianca. “The first-year representative is correct. This situation is still within bounds of what we can expect from a Gate. Nathaniel here is going to work on trying to dispel the seal. Those who are concerned about their safety may remain here. Jennifer will also stay behind to defend against potential monster manifestations.

“For everyone who wishes to venture further, stick together and ensure that you are always within visual range of a Graduate Reserve member. We should be identifiable by our uniform, but if things get chaotic, you can find us by the flux signature on our sigils.”

To demonstrate, Uriel started glowing, flux manifesting from a badge pinned to her chest and surrounding her in a red halo. “I should stress that you are not mandated to come forward. I actively advise against it if you are at all unsure about this situation. Though the situation is under control, the Gate’s parameters are evidently not precisely what our readings stated they would be. This is a situation that involves real danger.”

This wasn’t a speech she would be giving if she had just assumed that the Gate had sealed itself, which was as much as confirmation that the Reserve also thought this was enemy action.

“The goal of the Reserve contingent is to clear the Gate,” Uriel finished. “By defeating the Gate boss, the dungeon will be automatically purged, destroying any seals with it. Please make your decision within the next minute. If you have to think about it, I would advise staying back.”

That was unsurprisingly a poor deterrent. The end split favored the group that was going deeper into the Gate, composed of seven Reserve members and eleven Circuit competitors. Syl and Bianca hadn’t even taken a moment to think before joining them.

This split left seven competitors and two Reserve members back at the sealed Gate. They had enough massed firepower and defensive spells from Jennifer that Syl figured they would be fine.

James not being here did mess with the total amount of magic they had to offer. He’d been bringing up the back and hadn’t made it into the portal, which meant they were down a master-class magician. Uriel, Waylan, and Jennifer were all master-class, but Waylan was the only one of those who was equipped to fight in close quarters. Uriel specialized in artillery-type magic, while Jennifer was an engineer.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

With this many people around, Syl couldn’t use the full extent of his power, but depending on the nature of the enemy, it was possible that what he was able to bring to bear would be enough.

They advanced in a loose group, splitting off into three sub-groups when they hit intersections. Syl found himself with Bianca, two Reserve members, Lia, and a third-year man he didn’t recognize.

The cave didn’t get any brighter as they advanced deeper into it, still lit only by bioluminescent bacteria or algae in the water. Bianca lit their exploration with the D-class Dancing Wisps spell, creating points of light at set, random distances from them. True to the spell’s name, they drifted around them in an eerie dance, casting the wet cavern into ominous shadow.

Their first encounter came in about a hundred meters past the first intersection. One of the lights rounded a corner and instantly snuffed out. Splashing noises followed, accompanied by a pack of what Syl could only describe as overtly murderous bunnies jumping around a corner.

Instinctively, Syl cast magic that every Gate-diver learned and drilled every time they ran—D-class perception-type spell, False Analysis. A much lesser copy of its big brother, the A-class perception-type Analyze, this was a simple three-process spell that examined broad strokes of flux signature and compared them with whatever database had been loaded into the FCD.

Text scrolled in front of Syl’s eyes, his integrated FCD piping the information to his visual circuits.

[Murder Rabbit]

Class: D

Recorded Sightings: 19,759

Size: 0.5-1.5 meters long

Description: Commonly found in cave-type and plains-type Gate biomes. Most common in Cascadia. Though incapable of consciously casting, their stride and bite is enhanced by their internal flux. If bitten, seek immediate medical attention or cauterize the wound. B-class or higher fortification and purification-type magic is advised.

There were six of the unimaginatively named animals, rabidly leaping forward with reckless abandon. They closed the distance to Bianca, who was spearheading their group, in just under a second—right in time for her reactive shield to trigger, sending fire snapping out at the one headed straight for her. It was less effective given the water that it was dripping in, but the raw force of the flux pushed it aside, giving Lia time to call her FCD into action.

Hers was a sword taller than she was, though she swung it like it weighed nothing. She infused it with a simple D-class enhancement spell as the blade fell, splitting the rabbit in two.

The two Reserve students were quick on the uptake as well. Both of them had ongoing defenses already active, and they layered B-class projection-type spells with pinpoint accuracy, forming a zone of intense gravity that crushed two more of the rabbits in an instant.

They were deliberately holding back to give the others time to practice, Syl realized. He didn’t cast an offensive spell, instead reaching into his belt for a pistol. He’d decided to start bringing one to class after noticing that others had managed to sneak guns through, just on the off chance he might need to apply pressure without using his spells. There were three passive detection spells that applied to every point of the school—one that detected metal, one that detected flux emissions, and one that searched for items that were shaped a certain way. Bypassing those had been easy with an unconventionally shaped polymerase gun, though there had been some more finagling involved for the more specific ones.

He didn’t need to get involved. The third-year chose this as his time to show off, gesturing towards the three surviving rabbits. They were all soaking wet, and that came to bite them in the ass as the third-year created a magical circle under them. One and a half seconds later, they flash-froze, rabid screeches dying out in an instant.

Lia finished them off, crumpling the frozen D-class creatures to bits with her sword. Chunks of bloody meat spilled into the water, staining the blue lights a dark red.

“Well done, Wyatt,” one of the Reserve members said. “A bit slow, though.”

“I wanted to make sure I got it right,” the third-year—Wyatt, apparently—said. “I can do it faster if we need to.”

Syl cast his perception wider, using a spell that he was reasonably sure was undetectable even if he cast it in broad daylight, let alone in a dark, poorly-lit cavern.

The other groups were encountering similarly easy D or C-class fights. So far, everything was going as planned. Syl couldn’t see that much further forward since he didn’t have targets for the spell further ahead of him, but he could tell that all three groups had steamrolled through their first encounters. This was what they had come to do—build confidence, destroy some monsters, and bond as a group.

That rapidly changed, however, when their paths converged again, the members of the Graduate Reserve using mapping and communication items to get all eighteen of them regrouping in a wide cavern that all three groups could get to easily.

The water was a bit deeper here, enough that every step submerged Syl’s shoes almost up to his ankle. Splashing was unavoidable without magic, most of which he didn’t want to spend the resources on. Some others were walking on the surface of the water, Bianca included, but he didn’t have the processes to do that and also react to a fight.

At the center of the cavern, lit by an array of assorted illumination spells, was a pulsing brain the size of a large car. The bioluminescent lines in the water led up to it, thrumming with each of pulse.

[Domain Brain]

Class: B

Recorded Sightings: 938

Size: 5-10 meters long, 3-7 meters high

Description: Found in any biome. Effects may vary per biome. Capable of casting with flux, but only along the domain it controls, which is usually identifiable by the bioluminescence it casts out. Spells cast depend on the biome.

“That’s an early Gate boss,” Waylan said. “It’s also weirdly dormant. Shouldn’t it have noticed us by now?”

“Killing the B-class should eject us,” Uriel said. “It not attacking yet makes this easier. Prepare spells. Spread out to prevent interference. Focus fire on my count.”

Seventeen different spells ignited. Syl didn’t participate, instead keeping an eye out on their surroundings. There was something just a bit off about this Gate. He’d been in enough to tell that this was wrong.

The brain didn’t even stand a chance. There were two master-class magicians firing tactical-class magic at it, which would have been entirely overkill even before fifteen others attacked in their own ways. In the span of half of a second, it was frozen, had spikes grown through it, detonated, burned down, boiled, blasted by pure flux, torn apart by raw force, and otherwise annihilated in a dozen different ways.

The bioluminescent lines faded—but not all of them.

And nothing else changed.

The Gate stayed stagnant just long enough for Lia to ask, “So what is a gate opening supposed to be—“

A wave of flux rippled through them, the air weighing heavier on their shoulders.

“That’s not the Gate closing,” Uriel said, a note of alarm in her voice. “That’s an aura.”

The early warning system that Jennifer had pushed to their FCDs triggered, sending the same notice to all eighteen of them.

WARNING: Multiple tactical-class flux signatures detected. Do not engage.